Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
Bill Maher criticized Chappell Roan’s support for Palestine on Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher.
Maher, an atheist whose mother was Jewish, has frequently defended Israel’s actions since the war with Hamas erupted in Gaza last year.
“To mark the October 7 anniversary, we must launch a campaign to educate young Americans about the Middle East,” the talk show host began the episode by saying.
“And the way I’d like to begin that process is by addressing an open letter to Chappell Roan. Now, to those viewers who aren’t watching this while also looking at your phones, let me explain. … She’s actually a great new recording artist, who, like a Hezbollah pager, is really blowing up.”
He continued: “Chappell, if you think it was repressive growing up queer in the Midwest, try the Mid East.
“You’re a female drag queen and you sing, ‘I f***ed you in the bathroom when we went to dinner, your parents at the table.’ Yeah, that wouldn’t fly in Gaza. Although you would, straight off a roof. The same goes for ‘knee deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out.’ Yea, my guess is the morality police would figure out that one’s not about the drive-thru and kill your feathered boa-wearing ass. You know when you sing that ‘LA is where boys and girls can all be queens every single day’? You’re welcome, but offer not good in the West Bank.”
Roan, 26, recently criticized the Democratic party over its support of Israel, telling fans on TikTok the party has “failed people like me and you. And more so Palestine. And more so every marginalized community in the world.”
In an earlier video, Roan clarified she would not be voting for Republican candidate Donald Trump after her comments on voting were “completely taken out of context.”
Roan previously said she didn’t feel pressure to endorse someone as she has “so many issues with our government in every way.”
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
“There’s problems on both sides. I encourage people to use your critical thinking skills, use your vote – vote small, vote for what’s going on in your city,” she added.
On his show, Maher praised Roan for criticizing both sides of the political spectrum, but argued that her support for Palestine was born out of TikTok “propaganda.”
“Chappell, you’re not wrong that oppression is bad, or that Palestinian and many other Muslim populations are oppressed and deserve to be freed. You just have it completely ass-backwards as to who is doing the oppressing,” he said.
“Hamas is a terrorist mafia that took over Gaza… these are the oppressors. And when you make it all about Israel, you take the pressure off of them. You enable them.
“You’re a singer, and you’re advocating for a place and a culture you would never want to live under. Gender may not be binary, but right and wrong is,” Maher concluded.
The Independent has contacted Roan’s representatives for comment.
Over the years, Israel has often been accused of “pinkwashing” – pointing to its progressive stance on LGBT+ rights while depicting Palestine as violently homophobic.
On Friday, UN humanitarian officials said aid entering Gaza was at its lowest level in months and warned that critical lifelines in the territory's north, where Israel has renewed its military offensive, had been cut off.
The UN independent investigator on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, accused Israel last month of carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians during the war in Gaza, an allegation that Israel vehemently denies.
The war in Gaza started after Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted around 250 others during the October 7 2023 attacks on Israel.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, which do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90 percent of its population of 2.3 million people.
